NYC-based violinist Brendan Speltz, second violinist of the world renowned Escher String Quartet, has toured the globe with groundbreaking ensembles such as Shuffle Concert, the Manhattan Chamber Players, A Far Cry, and the Harlem Quartet. As founder of FeltInFour Productions, Mr. Speltz has produced innovative concert events across the New York City area that have been described by The New Yorker as “Thrilling, poignant, unexpected, and utterly DIY.” Most recently, Mr. Speltz co-created a cross-disciplinary presentation of Steve Reich’s Different Trains with aerial dance troupe ABCirque which was sponsored by Meyer Sound Labs.

In NYC he has performed as guest with the New York New Music Ensemble, Mark Morris Dance Group, American Ballet Theatre, the American Symphony, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and as a founding member of the conductorless string orchestra Shattered Glass. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California and his Master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music. Mr. Speltz plays a 1925 Carl Becker violin.

Venezuelan violist Ramón Carrero-Martínez is a prize winner of numerous competitions in the US, Italy, Australia, Japan, and Venezuela, including the Grand Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, Second Prize in the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, and Third Prize in Osaka International Chamber Music Competition and Festa.

Mr. Carrero-Martinez recently was appointed as a member of Ensemble Connect at Carnegie Hall for their 2023-2025 season. He has toured with the Grammy Award-winning, conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, premiered James Ra’s Concerto for Three Violas with the New York Classical Players, was a Senior Seminalist of Sphinx Competition 2023. In the summer of 2023, he performed Peteris Vasks’ Viola Concerto with the Classical Music Institute Orchestra of San Antonio.

A versatile soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician, he has performed with Terra String Quartet, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Exponential Ensemble, Mark Morris Dance Group as well as New York City Ballet, Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, New York Classical Players, Experiential Orchestra, and Riverside Symphony among many others.

As an educator, Mr. Carrero-Martinez is a faculty artist at the San Antonio Classical Music Institute as well as a member of the faculty of the Bronx-based music program UpBeat NYC, and the Orchestrating Dreams Program in Inwood. Both of these New York City programs are inspired by the philosophy of Venezuela’s National System of Youth and Children Orchestras, “El Sistema.”

Ramón was a member of “El Sistema” and holds a B.A. and M.M. from the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Daniel Avshalomov. Beyond his musical activities, he enjoys cooking, playing chess and is an incurable salsa dancer.

CHRISTINE LAMPREA, Cellist and 2018 Sphinx Medal of Excellence Winner, is an artist known for her emotionally committed and intense performances. Upon her Carnegie Hall debut as soloist in 2013, she has since returned to Carnegie, as well as performed with orchestras such Costa Rica National Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, National Symphony of Michoacan, New Jersey Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Santa Fe Pro Musica, and toured with the Sphinx Virtuosi across the U.S. As a recitalist, Ms. Lamprea has appeared on prestigious series at Illinois’ Krannert Center for the  Performing Arts, Florida’s Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, Pepperdine University, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Washington Performing Arts Society. In demand as a chamber musician, she performs   regularly with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, and has performed with such musicians as Shmuel Ashkenasi,   Sarah Chang, Itzhak Perlman, Roger Tapping, and Carol Wincenc.                                            

Ms. Lamprea strives to expand her musical boundaries by exploring many genres of music and non-traditional   venues for performance and teaching. Her Songs of Colombia Suite includes arrangements of traditional South  American tunes for cello and piano or guitar, and have been performed at the Colombian Embassy and Supreme Court of the United States for Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She has worked with members of Baroque ensemble Les Arts Florissants, and studied sonatas with fortepiano with Audrey Axinn. She has premiered several works by composers of today. In recent years, she commissioned cadenzas for the Haydn D Major Concerto by Jessie Montgomery, and premiered Jeffrey Mumford’s cello concerto “of fields unfolding...echoing depths of resonant light” with the San Antonio Symphony.

Ms. Lamprea is on the cello faculty at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, serves as substitute faculty at the Juilliard School, and served as Lecturer of Cello at the Texas Christian University School of Music for the 2018-19 academic year. Ms. Lamprea has given masterclasses for the Vivac-e Festival, Idyllwild Arts Academy, Wintergreen Summer Music Festival, among others. She has worked with Ecuadorian youth in the cities of Quito and Guayaquil, as part of a residency between The Juilliard School and “Sinfonia Por La Vida,” a social inclusion program modeled after Venezuela’s El Sistema program. Christine Lamprea is the recipient of a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, which supported her studies at the New England Conservatory, and a Sphinx MPower Artist Grant, which supported her study with acclaimed cellist Matt Haimovitz. She studied with Bonnie Hampton at The Juilliard School and holds a Master’s degree from the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Natasha Brofsky. Additional influences were Lynn Harrell, Frans Helmerson, and Philippe Muller. Previous teachers include Ken Freudigman and Ken Ishii.

Daniel Anastasio is a soloist and chamber musician based in San Antonio, Texas who combines an intellectual curiosity with “technical prowess and emotional sensitivity” (San Antonio Report). As Artistic Director of several organizations including Agarita and the San Antonio Chamber Music Society, his innovative programs have included collaborations with dancers, writers, museums, photographers, glass-blowers, and more. As a performer with a diverse skillset, he has performed Bach’s Goldberg Variations on harpsichord one week, and premiered a multimedia work by Rome Prize-winning contemporary composer Christopher Stark on MIDI keyboard the next. An active proponent of new music, he is the co-founder and pianist of Unheard-of Ensemble, a group that creates engaging interdisciplinary works in direct collaboration with emerging artists and composers across the United States, and tours actively. An Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Keyboard Studies at San Antonio College, Anastasio received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Music and Philosophy from Cornell University under Xak Bjerken, a Master of Music degree from Juilliard under Jerome Lowenthal, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University, where he studied with Gilbert Kalish and Christina Dahl.